The purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to chart and analyze the flow of payments and
credits to and from Gothenburg for the period 1790−1820, with a special interest in the
transactions involving The Merchant House Ekman & Co. Both bills of exchange transactions
within Ekman & Co and protested bills of exchange for other firms are studied.
Markus A. Denzel’s model of Cashless Payment is an instrument to study how bills of
exchange were used to ease payments and credit relations in the European Early Modern
Credit market between 1790 and 1820. European trade possibilities for the period
1790−1820 are discussed in chapter III. The period under scrutiny was rather dramatic
with economic and political changes. In Great Britain there was the industrial revolution
and France experienced the great political revolution, followed by the Napoleonic wars.
Chapter IV explores the credit- and bill of exchange markets. Since protested bills of exchange
and different ways to deal with the problems that occur are important, this dissertation
examines protested bills of exchange for two periods 1798−1800 and 1811−1812. The
reasons for protesting bills of exchange are either lack of acceptance or lack of payment,
both of which are common in this analysis. As a consequence there were no more endorsement
possibilities. Chapter V describes the business of The Merchant House Ekman for
the period 1790−1800, with special interest in the bills of exchange transactions. Peter III
Ekman started his business ca 1760. He realized the importance of European contacts and
from early on he traded with Merchants in Amsterdam, Hamburg, Greifswald, Wolgast
and Stralsund. During the period 1790−1800 he was one of the most important producers
of salted herring in Gothenburg. As a return good he imported grain from Merchant houses
in the Baltic Sea. He imported the important salt by using his own ships. Ekman’s credit
transactions in the form of bills of exchange contracts are of central importance, but the
difficulty with the bills of exchange transactions is that there are no obvious connections
with the commodity transactions. Because of endorsement, it is impossible to tell exactly
what bill of exchange belonged to a certain amount of traded commodity. Chapter VI examines
the Ekman & Co shift from mostly trading in herring and iron to concentrate on
colonial trade at the time of war. Concerning credit relations, a database has been created
for bills of exchange dating from 1810, which is then used to analyze the credit relations
that Ekman & Co had with other firms in the European market.
The dissertation shows the benefits of discounting and how the endorsements were used, as
well as the fact that the Cashless Payments system with the bills of exchange transactions
worked. When the system failed there was an effective law that solved the problem. All of this
is further evidence that Gothenburg was an integrated part of the European financial system.... more